Vermont prosecutor notches a win despite crime wave

By Ted Cohen

Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George coasted to a third election victory Tuesday, waving off a vigorous challenge from her former boss.

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George received 52 percent of the vote to Bram Kranichfeld's 48 percent, a clear, convincing margin of triumph in the Democrat primary.

The win effectively gives George a free pass on the general election since there is no Republican candidate on the ballot.

For Kranichfeld, currently the top prosecutor in a smaller northern county, the loss was an especially bitter one.

He shelled out for his humiliating defeat more than four times what George spent on what became her payback victory.

Kranichfeld had been deputy Chittenden state's attorney back in 2017 when his boss, T.J. Donovan, resigned after being elected Vermont attorney general.

To fill the temporary vacancy, Republican Gov. Phil Scott leapfrogged the more experienced Kranichfeld to appoint George, a junior colleague of his, to the top spot.

Kranichfeld resigned after the political rebuff, switching gears to attend Episcopal seminary before resuming his legal career as an appointed prosecutor in Franklin County.

But he never put out of mind having been forced to relinquish his dream in the county seat of the state's largest city, Burlington.

So he announced he would take on George, who he portrayed as soft on crime in deference to what she calls "restorative justice."

Kranichfeld hoped tagging his political nemesis with a troubling narrative of repetitive violent crime in Burlington would propel his cause.

But George on election day proved far more robust in the liberal pocket of Vermont than her more-conservative opponent ever imagined, winning all but a handful of the 18 towns in the county - Burlington among her sweetest spoils of victory.